Savoring life. Writing on experiences. Moments and milestones in equal measure.

Friday, November 6, 2015

Life On The Fast Lane

Are you chasing the wind?

Ever thought of going
for a hike? Climbing up on hills and hanging your feet off a cliff as you take
in the cold breeze and think of your purpose in life for some time? Well I
know I have. I often think of going for a road trip all the way to Merueshi –
lovely place by the way – where all I care for is the incessant sounds of
Maasai cattle. I want this – no, I actually need this – to escape the fast pace
of Nairobi - to go away and confirm that I am still on my divine path.And not Nairobi the city but more like Nairobi
the culture. Let me explain to you what Nairobi the culture is – assuming you’re
from a village – let’s use Rware as the village where you come from. Ok pause a
bit. Rware sounds funny. How do stand before people and say “I am Kinuthia and
I come from Rware without a grin?” An you know the fellas will be like Rware
Rware? Anyway cheers to everyone from Rware. You guys are great.

So back to the Nairobi
culture, there is this thing with Nairobi that dictates how you live. I will
call it culture for lack of an alternate word. It’s more like a code. A very
easy way to see it is to look at the people here. Everyone is eager for action.
At every corner are chaps who got the ‘hots’ for the game. We throw outrageous
parties. We fancy bewildering moments. We are thirsty for things money and
wealth. We like to live on the edge. We walk and ran fast – literary. We never
seem to slow down for anything. It’s all ringing phones, loud conversations,
shouting touts, beating traffic, office deadlines, chasing pay checks, bands
playing, DJs making sure we don’t hear any song for more than 30 seconds and
the list goes on and on. We are fast – really fast. And that is our culture –
very different from the one in Rware.

And speaking of DJs and
Photographers, have you noticed how everyone is doing these two nowadays? I am
sure the number of Djs and Photographers per square kilometre in Kenya is kedo
250. We need government intervention on those two careers. I have a plan for
this but let’s not diverge here. I want to talk about life on the fast lane. See
all those things I have said about Nairobi are not bad, they are good. I like
some of them. But where is the line? When do we stop chasing so wildly? When do
we fall back and experience serene life? Before I unload my titbits of wisdom let me
tell you a story.

***

Meet Bob – let’s just
call him Bob and don’t ask why. He is at the balcony of a noisy club in the
CBD. Bob is not happy and he is tired. He’s not drinking but it feels like he
is drunk. It’s on a Friday but he’s still got work to do in the office. So a little
after 9.00pm Bob signs out on his gang – the office chaps at the bar - and returns
to his office. The clock edges midnight and he is more than halfway done with
the work. He stands and stretches. He wants to pee so he heads to the washrooms.
Standing at the mirror washing hands, Bob looks at his reflection and he hates
himself. He does not like what he’s turned into. His sulk red eyes stare back.
He even feels ashamed. It wasn’t meant to be this way. His life has not been
fulfilling. There are deadline always and that’s fine because he beats them –
he’s smart. But something else is bothering him – he’s sick. He wants to tell
someone but he can’t. Everyone idolizes him. They’ll see him as weak. Nobody
with all the money and power wants to seem weak. It’s been eight month since
the treatment started but there is no change. Bob wants just a gleam of hope
that he can live. He really wants to live. And this is the problem. He is
almost facing the afterlife and he has not lived.

See Bob has money and
lots of it at that. Rumour has it that he has flats all over Nairobi. He has a
family too. However his family barely sees him. He is always at the office. He
works hard, or so he says. He also has a bad habit of drinking through the
weekend and showing home on Sunday midnight. Bob’s wife hates him for this. She
wants to leave for good. Bob knows this but there’s nothing he can do. It’s been
year and they have gotten rich together but it was all about money and wealth.
The hustled their ass off but it all seems meaningless now. In the bathroom Bob
punches the mirror in anger.He rushes
back to his office and drowns half a whiskey. He’s rattled. These thoughts are
killing him. He has everything but nothing at the same time. He’s scared. He
hasn’t lived his dream life. It has all been accumulating wealth that he has
not enjoyed. He screams out and runs for
the door. He wants to clear his head. He rushes across Moi Avenue and ends up
at Tribeka. At 3.00 am he can barely stand. He tries to but a sharp pain shoots
across his chest. He falls and fast forwarding the story he ends up on a bed at
Coptic hospital, barely breathing. He drank too much and his body couldn’t take
it. He has to be admitted for at least 3 weeks, maybe longer. The doctor knows
his afterlife is beckoning.

****

His case made me take a
step back to think. What is the essence of life? Why are we here? Where did we
come from? Where are we going? It is sad that we have been cultured to adore
and chase materialism. We only remember to live when we are almost dying. Look
at it this way. We chase money at the expense of our physical and spiritual
well being. We then use the money to recuperate our health. In the process we
become engrossed in the fear of the future that we don’t even live the present.
And we try to live as if we will never die truly knowing we will. And when we
die, we do so having never truly lived. The worst thing is that the definition
of success and prosperity in the modern world has been reduced to how expensive
we can be, the car we drive, and the level of education, the much we earn, and
the cost of our house etc. we have ended up in a cage of materialism and all it
can bring along.

But have you ever asked
yourself where God is in the middle of all this? Have you realised that unlike
in the past the topic of our eternity and our purposes in life has stopped
trending. We want to be preached to about prosperity and taking over the world.
But what about our supernatural assignments? I know there are those that don’t believe
the tiniest bit about God and this is a problem too. We are a society that
seems oblivious of realities of life. On the other hand, say you’re saved and
they immediately think you’re a boring loser and maybe an idiot. And the bigger
problem is that we are saved but money and wealth and every other good thing
first. We accumulate Bob style – as if we have all eternity to enjoy what we
have.

It’s like we are
screaming we know everything and we have everything. And who needs God when
they have that? Who needs the old fashioned God of the Old Testament? I mean
things are different now aren’t they? Funny enough God comes in only when we
are in trouble. We pray hard when that doctor’s report comes along in a way we
never expected. We cry to God when our loan has not come through? We observe a convenience
relationship with God. I mean we don’t have to keep all the rules but we still
want the blessings. We are busy to commit to Him. It is too hard to have a
fast-lane lifestyle and still be on God’s side right? We want God to bless us
as long as He does not question our lives on the fast-lane. It’s easier to buy
a shoe at 15k than give a 3k offering. What for?

But here’s our undoing.
Although we are gods we forget that we are here for a time and a reason. We
will not last forever, we have expiry dates. Wait until it hits you that you’re
not here forever, when you’re on your death bed. Then is the time that we realize that what bothers us now maybe isn’t that good. Maybe it is not worth
it. Maybe we are chasing all the wrong things. Maybe our culture is just an
evil plan to usher us in to desires that literary kill us before we die.
Methinks one does not need to be buried to be dead. It all gets lost at the loss
of purpose; at the dismissal of our creator. So how about next time you make sure
you go for that hike and hang your feet on the edge of the cliff and think hard
about your purpose in life. How about you pause from the race and rethink your
direction. And by the way can we go for the road trip to Merueshi? Yes?